Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me

The speaker mentions copying every word of their mother, particularly her song: “I rehearsed you / The way you had of singing / On a breeze, / While a sob lay / At the root of your song” (Lines 44-48). The speaker watching their mother singing suggests a level of intimacy and vulnerability shared between the two. Within the singing, the mother expresses an array of emotions, as music, particularly in the African-American community, is a means of processing the most joyful and also the darkest of times, including weddings, funerals, prison or slave work in the fields, etc. At a young age, the speaker is starting to witness the complexity of adult emotions, even if they may not yet understand their depth. Songs can carry the weight of ancestors, of generations passing on stories. When a mother sings to her child, she is carrying on the legacy that the speaker can then share with their own child someday.

As the speaker reflects on their teenage years, they depict their attitude toward their mother as haughty, as if looking down on her from the “high perch / Of teenage wisdom” (Lines 63-64). This high perch represents the imbalance in the mother-child relationship and the shift from the child seeing their mother as their entire world to seeing her as someone slow, clueless, and lacking.